What Is A Stablecoin?
I feel like learning about cryptocurrency is one constant trip down a rabbit hole, and just when I figure out one thing (or feel like I might be getting close to figuring it out), something new pops up that completely throws me off.
And this week, that was stablecoins. In this episode we broke down some of the more famous coins and discussed their purpose, and when you should consider (or if) ever investing in them.
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Here is the official transcript:
Erin Gregor:
All right. Welcome to Clarifying Crypto. I'm Erin Gregor. I'm here with my co-host, Gary Leland. Gary, welcome.
Gary Leland:
Howdy, howdy, howdy.
Erin Gregor:
How are you today?
Gary Leland:
I had to say [crosstalk 00:00:10] say howdy three times because this is the third take.
Erin Gregor:
This is the third take. I think we're good, though. The mics are working, there's no feedback. We are officially good to go. All right. We're here talking all things crypto. Gary, you host a podcast called Four Minute Crypto. Five days a week, you publish news, four minutes long, about crypto. I always love to ask what's anything big, anything new going on that we need to know in the crypto world?
Gary Leland:
I think something big might be going on, because Jack Dorsey with Square was rewarded a patent.
Erin Gregor:
Oh! We talked about Jack last week, but what was the patent?
Gary Leland:
It was on a way to convert fiat into cryptocurrency. Right now, if you hypothetically go buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks and you want to pay with Bitcoin, if you pay with Bitcoin on the blockchain, you might have to wait 20 minutes for the confirmations for your coffee to be approved for payment. And this is, basically, as the story said, you can go in and buy your coffee, it would convert crypto you used into fiat instantaneously for the person. And it would all happen in live time, so they received the patent. I'm not sure how it works. When they were asked about it, they wouldn't have much to say about it, but that makes me believe, my thought, that they're going to announce that Twitter's going to take Bitcoin tips.
Erin Gregor:
So he's propping it up. It seems that patent could be used in a heck of a lot more than just Twitter accepting tips, right? He owns the Cash App, right?
Gary Leland:
Right. And there's an SDK that goes with it that people can be bill stuff on. The thing on the Twitter taking tips, it was going to be through the Square. I don't know why Cash couldn't be involved with that, too. If he's got the patent, I would think he's going a long ... because he has several people that work just on Bitcoin. But I think it's just another thing to do with Bitcoin that's done by Jack Dorsey who owns Twitter, Square and Cash, that's going to move all that in to the next phase.
Gary Leland:
And that's a pretty big deal because that's the problem right now. Even now bought Bit Block Boom, we take t-shirts and sell t-shirts and stuff during the conference. Some people come with Bitcoin and pay for it, and we just basically take their word on it, because we don't want to make them wait for 25 minutes. And we've never been screwed. In three years, no one's payment hasn't come through. So I think we're dealing with pretty honest people at our convention. Or they don't realize that they could screw us, one or the other.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. They don't know you don't have anybody to hunt them down if the money doesn't come through. We don't spill that secret, though, here. And that's good, too. From our perspective, I know a lot of people are very hesitant to get into crypto, and again, we're not financial advisors. This is just two people who like talking crypto. But it always gives me hope and a good sign that I'm going in the right place, because when people are doing that much investment in it and continue moving forward with Bitcoin and just make for it to be easier for people to use, hopefully it's going to make it worth more and more in the long run. Right?
Gary Leland:
Yeah. You got big names, so people with big companies, who are really smart. All of them are a lot smarter than I am. So that's a good sign. It's not people that I feel like, "Oh, I'm the smartest person in the room." I feel like I'm probably one of the least intelligent people in the room. So I think that's a good sign. As my wife's father used to always say, "Do you want to be a millionaire? Hang out with millionaires. If you want to be a drug addict, hang out with druggies. You want to be smart, hang out with smart people. If you want to be successful, hang out with successful people." So I think I'm doing the smart successful person, hoping that will rub off on me.
Erin Gregor:
I agree. So I'm going to tell you a story, and I'm embarrassed to tell you this story, I'm going to be honest with you. So speaking of smart people, this crypto thing, I listen to the podcast and sometimes I'm just like, "I don't know if I completely grasp this yet." So, we talked about this months ago now, about wallets, and you freaked me out a little bit about the wallets, because I'm like, "Oh my gosh, what if I put in the wrong code and then I transfer my money over to ..." Yet, I've invested in crypto. I bought my first like year and a half ago. I've yet to put it in a wallet. This week is the first time I actually started transferring my crypto to a wallet. I'm still not fully there yet. I just bought some more and I'm like, "Well, I'll just wait till the transaction goes through and I'll move some more over." But I did an app on my phone, that was my first one, Mycelium.
Gary Leland:
A hot wallet.
Erin Gregor:
Is that what it is? A hot wallet. I can't remember all the terms. But I have a question for you, because I've started just to get the feel of this and figure this out. This stuff is intimidating. I don't know why it's so intimidating.
Gary Leland:
Oh, it is. It is.
Erin Gregor:
But it really intimidates me.
Gary Leland:
[crosstalk 00:05:28] I have to sit there and look at it for a little while.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. And then I'm going through this and I'm researching and I remember, like, "Okay, I know Gary and I talked about this," like nodes and all of this stuff. I'm like, "Ah, it's still ..." I get it and then I don't get it. So, I'm definitely not the smartest person in any of these rooms. I can promise you that.
Gary Leland:
Well, at least we have something in common.
Erin Gregor:
Exactly.
Gary Leland:
We like talking and we're not very smart.
Erin Gregor:
Exactly. And we're learning. I like testing all these different things we talk about and learning about them. I'm a millionaire in the Satoshi world, and I transferred my Satoshis from Fold over to this app.
Gary Leland:
Well, good.
Erin Gregor:
But it converted them back. And I know this is just semantics-
Gary Leland:
Converted them to Bitcoin, right?
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. What do I-
Gary Leland:
What did it say?
Erin Gregor:
Can I transfer anything that keeps them in Satoshis? And I know it doesn't matter-
Gary Leland:
No, no. They haven't set it up to transfer it as Satoshis yet. It's not anything you did, it's how Fold ... They were getting so much grief about there wasn't a way to exit your money, that they went ahead and started working on it and they had that built first, so they went ahead and released it. And so they're working on now to let you transfer in Satoshis, which that is why I haven't transferred mine, because I need some Satoshis. I'm just waiting so I can transfer in to Satoshis.
Erin Gregor:
But can't you just convert? I've got this Bitcoin now. Can I just convert those to Satoshis or no?
Gary Leland:
Yeah. You can if you have a place to ... I have a Casa Node, and I can upload in to my Casa Node and make them in to Satoshis. I'm sure there is, I just don't know where, because I haven't done it any other way. And I didn't want to figure out another way, is why I just waiting for them to be able to export Satoshis, because I don't want to figure it out.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. And that's where I just get, like I said, there's just so much. And I know it's like, "Okay, I'm going to just baby step this," but what I want to be able to do is ... What was that?
Gary Leland:
Well, I was going to say you just got to realize, this is exactly how the net was in '94, '5 and '6 and stuff. It was real complicated. That's why nobody was on it. You couldn't even see a photo. There was no browser, even. So you're in here really early, still. And that's what's holding it up a lot, is it's so complicated. But that's because of when you're in here, but I think it's moving faster than the internet did. If you really take for granted the internet started in probably the '70s as a government project. So if you put that in to perspective, it's moving a lot faster than that did, because that didn't get any mainstream use until Netscape came out in about '96. And it took, what? 26 years to get any kind of usage. But then the bottom fell out of it and everybody got on it. So we're moving in a fast rate, but that's where we're at, is we're really early still.
Erin Gregor:
Okay. I don't feel so bad, because like I said, I just listen to the stuff and I get really excited. I listen to the podcast. It interests me, and that's what we're going to talk about the Stablecoin thing today-
Gary Leland:
There's a lot to learn.
Erin Gregor:
There is a lot to learn.
Gary Leland:
And it's tough. A lot of it is complicated stuff, and it's not what you're used to doing, and your whole way of thinking with money is different than this. So it's a lot. I think that's why Boomers have a really hard time with it, because they have been ingrained with this stuff and they're not as flexible. [crosstalk 00:08:54] computers to do and they're ingrained that money is a certain thing, so it's even harder for them. The older you get, the harder it is, I think, to get a grasp on.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. And I feel like I'm just like a hoarder right now, I'm just like, "Where am I? Okay." Because what I wanted was a wallet for the Lollies of the world, the Folds, all this funny money I'm getting, it's how I look at it that, it's all free money, and then have another wallet for my actual investments. And I screwed it up a couple of times. I'll be flat out honest. I put the wrong code in when I was trying to transfer, and it was like, "That's not a valid code."
Gary Leland:
At least it told you than you send them out of there.
Erin Gregor:
That's true. That's true. Well I was putting a wrong link in. I was linking it-
Gary Leland:
You could have lost it.
Erin Gregor:
Exactly, I could have lost my million Satoshis. Not that I'm a millionaire any more. But now I'm not even a millionaire as it is, because I don't have them.
Gary Leland:
I'm still a millionaire. I'm a multi millionaire now on Satoshis. It's too bad Satoshis aren't worth a dollar.
Erin Gregor:
I know. I know. I need Satoshis to go to a dollar. I was laughing, because I'm like, "Okay, so I transferred ..." I had over a million, but I transferred my million over, and I'm like, "Okay." So now I just need to do that 100 times more and I get a Bitcoin.
Gary Leland:
It's a small amount, but ... I don't know. There's something about Satoshi. And I'm using an app right now that I have a fun time with called ... Let me look at it real quick ... called Pepo. Have you heard of Pepo?
Erin Gregor:
I have not heard of Pepo.
Gary Leland:
Pepo is an app and it's made on ... I'm not sure on what blockchain, because I don't care. If it's not Bitcoin, I really don't care. But it's for people to talk about crypto like TikTok, basically. But you only talk about crypto. And you get rewards in the app's money. So I've gotten $10, I think this month, or $11 this month. But it's really interesting. I like it, but they'd made it to give out sats instead of whatever the hell it gives out. Pepos, I think, is what it gives out. I think for me to give out sats ... because it gave me like 500 Pepos to start with. If they'd have given out sats, they could've given away 100 sats, which would be worth nothing, and people I think would go way more crazy about it than they do with it being Pepos that they get.
Erin Gregor:
So do you convert your Pepos, then, to Bitcoin?
Gary Leland:
It's only like $11 in there after a month. You can convert it, I don't see a way to export, now thinking about it, but I can do it for Amazon gift cards and stuff. So that can give an $11 Amazon gift card.
Gary Leland:
But it's funny, this morning I did something on there, because you and I talk for 30 seconds, and then someone came on and you can reply to them. And someone came on and said, "I've been trying to talk to my dad to get him into Bitcoin and he told me he started watching Bitcoin people, and he was watching some show called the Four Minute Crypto with Gerry Leland." The guy told me this. He goes, "I couldn't believe it." I told him, "I know that guy."
Erin Gregor:
That's hilarious. You're crypto famous.
Gary Leland:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And that's a small world, too.
Erin Gregor:
Hey. Take it where ever you can get it. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that.
Gary Leland:
At 65, I guess I need to.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. I mean, hey, why not? So the topic I wanted to talk about today was Stablecoin, because last week we talked about CES, Libra ... I was trying to understand with you why Bitcoin is more of a buy and hold whereas Libra is set up to spend. And we talked about it and I was listening to a podcast to this, Stablecoin came up several times. And I'm like, "Wait a minute." And I started researching Stablecoin and Libra, to my understanding, and please correct me if I'm wrong, is what's considered a Stablecoin.
Gary Leland:
Right. It's tied to a basket of currencies. It shouldn't go up or down. It's not pegged to a dollar, for instance. Some of them are pegged to a dollar.
Erin Gregor:
Or gold, I saw, gold and silver.
Gary Leland:
Yeah. I don't know ... or silver, I guess, or all kinds of coins. But I don't think of those as Stablecoins as much as I do ones that are pegged to a dollar. Because the gold goes up and down. So, that's not really very stable is it? Gold can go up double, and then if this coin, I'm going to use a hypothetical, if one coin was tied to an ounce of gold, and gold went up $500 an ounce, that's not very stable.
Erin Gregor:
And so the coin would go up then that much, too, right? Is that how it works?
Gary Leland:
Right, because it's tied to the ounce of gold.
Erin Gregor:
And so if it goes down, it can go down, too?
Gary Leland:
Right. So a Stablecoin, usually, is tied to one dollar bill. So supposedly, for every coin out there, which there's a lot of discrepancies, I know that, from people who own some of the top ones, think that they have the money in the bank or not. But supposedly for every dollar, or every Stablecoin out there, there's a dollar in the bank. So there's $10 million in the bank, and those are always worth a dollar. But even on those, you'll see them go $1.01, 98 cents, I don't know why they vary at all since they're only worth a dollar, supposedly, but ...
Erin Gregor:
And so then does it work the same way, where ... we've talked about this before where part of the problem with the dollar is that with inflation my dollar goes down. So is the same problem happening with this cryptocurrency where if I've got-
Gary Leland:
Yeah. A dollar basically goes down about 2% a year on average, or that's basically what the Fed says they're happy with, 2% inflation. So it's not that items get more costly; it's that your dollar is worth less. A lot of people get confused, go, "Whoa! That's a lot higher this year." No, it's the same price. It just takes more of these green things to buy it. But the concept, really, on it is that you're not buying Stablecoins for long term investments. Or that's the way I understand it. I'm not big on Stablecoins how everybody use them, but let's say if you had Bitcoin right now, and you thought Bitcoin right now is probably $8,300, but you thought it was going to drop to 6,000, and you didn't want to get out of the market. So you just swap over your Bitcoin for Stablecoins. And if you had one Bitcoin at 8,300, now you'd have 8,300 Stablecoins. [crosstalk 00:15:57] the dollar. And then Bitcoin drops to 6,000 and then you get back in and you trade your Stablecoin for Bitcoin, and now you have 1.2 Bitcoin. But you never got out of the market. Or you didn't have to convert it to cash and then convert the cash back into Bitcoin.
Erin Gregor:
So if that's the case, then do I ever have to pay taxes on that?
Gary Leland:
So technically, if you made money off your Bitcoin, if you originally bought your Bitcoin at five ... and I'm not a tax consultant either. But if I bought my Bitcoin at $5,000 and it went up to 8,300 when I converted it to Stablecoin, at that point I'm supposed to pay for my profits, because I just gained $3,300. That, supposedly, is [inaudible 00:16:41]. I don't know what people do because I'm not into Stablecoins that much. I'm more of just a hot wallet. I just ride where it seems to me ... just a good a chance of getting in late and screwing up and not making any money off the deal. So, I'm not that good.
Erin Gregor:
I'm still trying to figure out why I would do this. Do I pay less than transaction fees? I mean, it seems to me I can just sell it to dollars and purchase back, or sell it to Libras and purchase back. Is there an advantage of sticking in one versus the other?
Gary Leland:
[crosstalk 00:17:11] I can see is you can do it quicker unless you're just going to let your cash sit on the exchange, because then you've got to get your cash back in the exchange to buy more. A lot of wallets, I don't know about Mycelium that you're using, but a lot of wallets let you transfer right inside the wallet from one currency to another. So if I added my wallet, for instance, the Exodus wallet, I can buy and sell. Crypto is right the side of the wallet there.
Erin Gregor:
I don't have to take them back and send them back to a Coinbase?
Gary Leland:
No, no, you can do it in your wallet. And there's a lot of wallets that can do that. So if you converted it to dollars, well you got to put those dollars on an exchange. You really can't convert it in ... I guess you could, I guess some you could just have cash in. But typically I think you can do that on the exchange, convert it back to dollars, and then maybe in the last six months and you don't want to wait six months worth of cash in there, for some reason people feel funnier about cash [inaudible 00:18:13]. And so we pull it out and then you got to put it back in and you've got to buy it again. So, I don't know. And actually I don't know if you'd pay as much to convert the Bitcoin to a Stablecoin as you would Bitcoin to cash. I said, I know enough about it, but I'm not an expert on it because I don't do a lot of it.
Erin Gregor:
So when you hear about-
Gary Leland:
It's a taxable event.
Erin Gregor:
Okay. It is a taxable event. So when you hear about countries creating their own, China's a big talk of creating their own crypto. Is it more than likely they're tying it to something this and going to create a Stablecoin, or ...
Gary Leland:
Yeah. It's going to be an electronic Yuan or whatever their currency is, is their currency the Yuan? Is that right? Whatever it is, it's going to be an electronic version of that and they're going to probably end up getting rid of the Yuan. I mean, basically every country probably is going to do this, the United States have a Fed coin, and then there's no way you can have any money moving anywhere in the country that the government doesn't know about, whether it's for taxable purposes, you're trying to move the money around with cash, buying and selling cash or whether it's because you don't want them to see what you're doing. But all the money will be trackable.
Gary Leland:
So, I think that's different than a Stablecoin. And that's just a government currency that they can track and control. And also, in China right now, from what I understand, I'm not an expert on China, but you also get a social score as to whether you can use the trains or get a job or whatever has a lot to do with your social score as to whether the government thinks you're a good Chinese or a bad Chinese. And I'm sure the same thing would apply to the money, since they can just turn the switch and take your money. I mean, you can't hide your money under the pillow any more because it's all on a wallet, and it's all controlled. It's a centralized currency, so they can pick it back any time they want, which someone could do with the Stablecoin. I mean, it's a centralized currency. But it's not centralized by government that wants to control their people.
Erin Gregor:
Well, and I'm curious as you see these, and I know this is way going in deep and a lot of speculation, because we just don't know. As you see countries taking on their own crypto, I almost see that benefiting Bitcoin more, because there's going to be more people who maybe aren't as comfortable, crypto will be adopted, but people are going to want to keep their crypto off to the side too. Or do you think that's going to end up harming a Bitcoin?
Gary Leland:
No, I don't think it will harm a Bitcoin. I think it's two different animals. I don't think it would harm a Bitcoin any more than a dollar bill harms a Bitcoin or a gold harms a Bitcoin. I don't see that. Bitcoin's a different animal, completely, I think. I mean, I could be wrong, but I don't think so. I don't see that picture.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. So Stablecoins are just really, they're tied to something ... We talked about Libra, it's more of a spending type currency, right?
Gary Leland:
Libra is.
Erin Gregor:
Libra is, but not all Stablecoin is.
Gary Leland:
No, no. Stablecoins aren't necessarily ... they're just for putting money in and holding. I mean, I haven't ever seen any place that really takes Stablecoins. I mean, there's not mechanisms set up for shopping and selling and buying and things with that. No one's sending up shopping carts that'll take Stablecoins. So, Stablecoins are strictly for, for the most part, playing the market, just from [crosstalk 00:21:57]. And if you're thinking it's going down, you put it in Stablecoins. You think it's going up, you take it out of your Stablecoins and put it in there. And like Gemini Exchange, the Winklevoss twins, they have Gemini. That's a Stablecoin. It's tied to the dollar. And they've said they have a dollar in the bank for every one of the Gemini coins.
Erin Gregor:
All right, so ... and I'm sorry for so many questions, it's because I'm still trying to grasp this. So I'm a company, I want to create a crypto, I wanted to create my own crypto. Why would I want to create a Stablecoin versus a non Stablecoin?
Gary Leland:
Well, if you create a Stablecoin, now you're going to be able to collect off the fees. That's all you can do with it. I mean, that's all Gemini, we're planning on doing, we'll just make money on fees when people want to convert Bitcoin that I can know. I don't know what else they could do with it, but they want to convert Bitcoin over to the Gemini coin, so if they've got a million dollars worth of Bitcoin, it's still worth a million dollars no matter what happens to Bitcoin, then we make the money on the fees.
Gary Leland:
And that's what you're trying to do. I got a million dollars in Bitcoin, well I don't [crosstalk 00:23:05]. But you got a million dollars in Bitcoin, and you go, "I don't feel comfortable. This has been going too fast. It's bound to fall. I want to get it out of there for a while." And you move that million dollars over the Gemini coin, and it's worth a million dollars. A year from now, it'll be a million dollars. So maybe you'll miss it, and you can only get back in half as much Bitcoin as you had, or maybe what you think comes true and Bitcoin drops in half and you get twice as much Bitcoin as you had. But it's more of a parking place for your crypto.
Erin Gregor:
Then does a company like Gemini have a non Stablecoin usually, too, or they don't have it?
Gary Leland:
They sell all the other coins.
Erin Gregor:
They sell. Okay. All right. This is making more sense now.
Gary Leland:
[crosstalk 00:23:44] all the cryptos, all the cryptos. And they carry different cryptos and then they provide their own Stablecoin so they can make their money, because that's just tying money to a dollar, that's not any real thing that you got to sell people on, I guess. If you have people using your account, they're just as likely, I guess, to use your Stablecoin if they think you're trustworthy. And it really is backed by the dollar that you really have the dollar in the bank for it. Because that's the complaint on some of them, is they don't think they have a dollar in there for everyone they make.
Gary Leland:
And then there are also people who track what they think Bitcoin's going to do by what's happening with short Stablecoins.
Erin Gregor:
Really. And how does that affect it?
Gary Leland:
Well, they might sell in the Stablecoins. Everybody's selling their Stablecoins. They're putting it in back into the market. And so that's a sign. Or if Gemini is having to make more Stablecoins, they've sold out of Stablecoins, and they go, "Oh, we've got to have more Stablecoins." So I would assume they'd dump a couple of million into the bank or transfer a couple of million from one account to the other and say, "This is designated for the Stablecoins."
Gary Leland:
So when you see the amount of Stablecoins grow, that's what they usually see, is they went from 20 million Stablecoins to 25 million Stablecoins. Well, that means they foresee a lot of people getting ready to buy Stablecoins.
Erin Gregor:
Oh, okay. Now this makes much more sense. So where do you go to find that information where you see things are moving?
Gary Leland:
I don't know because I don't track that. If you went to CoinMarketCap, that shows all the cryptocurrencies in rank of one to 2,000, all of them if they're a decent currency, if they're a legit currency go on there and some not legit. So if you went to CoinMarketCap, you can actually say, "Here is the things I want to follow," and you can make your own follow list. And you can follow Gemini and four or five other Stablecoins. And you look at that list and it'll show you the value of the coin, which is always around a dollar, maybe a dollar one, maybe 99 cents. It'll fluctuate a little. And it'll show you how many there are, what the market cap is, and you can just track that. And I guess if you're pretty good, you can just make yourself a bot. There probably is a bot somewhere that just tracks it and shows you if anything goes up, sends you a report. "Hey, this one went up by five million and 10 million in quantities."
Erin Gregor:
That's interesting. I'm glad I asked this question, because now it makes a lot more sense, because I'm like, "Why would I do Stablecoin versus non Stablecoin?" I'm with you-
Gary Leland:
It's not for getting an advance on the dollar going down 2%, because it's still worth a dollar. So it's going down 2% a year too. The dollar goes down 2%, it's value is less, then, 2% less.
Erin Gregor:
And you're not going to sit and hold ... I mean, you may-
Gary Leland:
Yeah. [crosstalk 00:26:38] invest in a coin that never goes up. You just go, "I want to put in and have a $1 million in there, because it never goes up or down."
Erin Gregor:
"It's safe. It's very, very safe."
Gary Leland:
"It's always worth a million." I mean, you know.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah.
Gary Leland:
So it's just if you're going to get back into market. You want to get out and in. You just transfer it into there and you transfer it right back.
Erin Gregor:
Okay. And that does make a lot more sense if you're going to drop down. But ... and again, I'm not a tax expert too, so I want to be careful when I say this, but I remember we were talking about this, and I was just listening to a podcast for somebody who was saying, "Remember how we talked about how ..." Let's say I bought crypto at three, I bought it at six, I bought it at 10, crypto goes down to five. I don't want to sell the three, even though that was my first one, because I don't want to show a profit, but I want to sell the 10 to do a loss at the end of the year. Originally, you had to go by your first, but there's now something, I think you have to use some software and I probably shouldn't even be talking about this, because I don't know fully what I'm talking about. But you can actually select which crypto you want to sell based on the date. So you can do that now.
Gary Leland:
I wasn't aware of that, because I've heard several shows from tax people and they're always, it's like in stocks. It's first in, first out. Because if you bought Facebook stock at $17, and you bought some more at 50 bucks, and you bought some more at 100, and now it's 210, and you pulled out 50, those 50 are going to be at the first price.
Erin Gregor:
Are you sure? Because I have a SOC account ...
Gary Leland:
Yeah, I'm pretty sure on that. I don't know, because I'm not [crosstalk 00:28:21]-
Erin Gregor:
I'm not either.
Gary Leland:
I feel comfortable saying it because I've heard so many tax people say that on podcasts, because when it comes tax season, when April starts hitting, March and April, you're going to see tax people interviewed like crazy on crypto podcasts.
Erin Gregor:
Maybe get one on here.
Gary Leland:
Yeah, because [crosstalk 00:28:41] me all the time, coming on, and you'll get emails from people wanting to say, "Hey, I'm a tax expert at cryptocurrency. I'd love to come on your show." I get 10 or 20 a year, especially when it gets tax season, because that's when they're making their money. So starting February and March, they start sending out their emails. And everybody starts having them on their show, especially in April.
Erin Gregor:
All right. Yeah. We'll have to look at that. That's curious to me because it's interesting you say that. I was just selling some stock on another program I had, and they asked me to select which one I wanted to sell, was it my most current, my furthest out, and I had that selection.
Gary Leland:
Yeah, I'm just going from what they say.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. Well, if you don't sell and just hang on to them forever, you don't even have to worry about it.
Gary Leland:
When I bought Facebook, I bought a bunch at one time, so it was all the same no matter when I sold it, so I didn't have to go, "Oh, give me that math, because I usually don't buy multiple times into the same stock over a period of time. I buy a batch." So, that's why I'm not very knowledgeable on that. If I come back in, I usually come back in and add another investment.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. I do small bites. It's just like what I'm doing with crypto, to be honest with you. I mean, 1,000 here and 2,000 there, buy. So it's not a bunch, it's just every month, I buy some of that, buy some stocks. So I do slow rolls in.
Gary Leland:
Some averaging, dollar cost averaging. Yeah.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. Picked some up today at 83.
Gary Leland:
So that's why you would know more about that to me, because I don't do that except the Bitcoin. Well, in Bitcoin I don't do that.
Erin Gregor:
Really?
Gary Leland:
Yeah, I just buy it. I buy it in hunks. But I tell people that they should buy a certain amount every month, but when I'm ready to buy some, I just go ahead and buy it. I don't say, "Oh, I'll break this up into 10 hunks and buy some every week or every month." I just go ahead and buy it all.
Erin Gregor:
I have too much FOMO. I'm worried, I go be like, "Ooh, it's going to ..." I always want some on hand. I always have cash on hand for when it's going down. And that way I can pick up some more, but then I try to, like the cost average is, "Just buy some here, buy some there."
Gary Leland:
Right. If I got some money, I buy. And then stack sets whenever I can for free.
Erin Gregor:
Okay. Real quick, are you playing games to get stats or anything like that too that you're doing?
Gary Leland:
No. No. I don't play games. I don't have any time, I don't. All I think I'm doing that is Lolly and Fold. And then I have a Casa node, so I get 10,000 sets a week on that.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. See, the node thing, I can't go there yet. I got to get the wallet thing down before I start. I feel so stupid with it. I'm just like, "Why is this so ..." But there's so much information, if you start really consuming podcasts [crosstalk 00:31:47]-
Gary Leland:
You've got to wrap your head around it.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. And you've got to wrap your head around it. And then there's like, "Well, there's this app, and there's this thing, and then you can do this and you can do this." And you're just like, "Oh my God, it's information and option overload."
Gary Leland:
[crosstalk 00:31:58] Mycelium wallet.
Erin Gregor:
I went out and it was listed in one of the apps. There was another one I tried to use and it was a little more confusing, and so I had both of them and I went to Mycelium and it worked. [crosstalk 00:32:16]. I can't remember the other one. The other one was like ... I was just a little bit overwhelmed by it.
Gary Leland:
So you're planning on keeping all your Bitcoin on your phone, so any time you walk around you have a ton of money on your phone?
Erin Gregor:
No. I got the Trezor or whatever it is for my bigger investments. Those will go off in there. The Mycelium one is just my funny money. That's where all my Fold money is going to go, or unless I can actually do a transfer of Satoshis. I have no plans on spending that, to be honest with you too. But it's just more of my ... I mean, God help me if I get to a spot where I've got a ton of money on here, because that means I spent a lot of money on Fold, so it's a catch 22. But yeah, that's my plan, is just to have that bucket of this is free, this is all free stuff, and then my actual investments are in another one.
Gary Leland:
Yeah, exactly why I don't keep much anything on me. If they steal my phone ... I just don't want anything on there so they wouldn't have a reason to steal my phone. No-one checks and say, "Give me your phone. I'm going to hit you in the head ..." "Hey, look, there's no wallets on here. There's nothing on here. I'll mail you $100 if you let me keep your phone.
Erin Gregor:
No. And if I do a travel or something, I will get them off my phone. For now, I wanted to get something off Fold just to see what it was, just to see how this thing worked. And, I mean, I don't feel comfortable just carrying it on my phone the whole time, but I do want to keep two different wallets. I don't know why, but-
Gary Leland:
No, it's fine. I have another phone. My old phone, which was a 7s, I got to 10 now, I guess. My old 7, I keep that for when I go out of the country. If I go on a cruise ...
Erin Gregor:
That's a good idea. It's a really good idea.
Gary Leland:
I might take both phones on the cruise, but I leave my 10 in my cabin, and then when I go on the mainland, like on a beach in Jamaica or something, I'm out on the beach, I will leave my phone. So I take my old one for photos and use the WiFi on it. It's not as good. But then again, someone steals it, I'm not out of $1,300, $1,400. So I keep both of them around. When I go traveling, I take both.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. No, that's a good idea. And I am not-
Gary Leland:
And it has no wallets on it at all. I mean [crosstalk 00:34:42] but the basics: Facebook, Twitter, camera.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. Well, and my viewpoint is I am not the most technically savvy person. I have had computers crash on me. I've had phones crash on me. I've lost things before. I don't do the best of backing up everything. So for my sake, it would be better for me to get everything off. But I just wanted to test out the wallet, finally say I actually did something with a wallet and then like I said, got a [crosstalk 00:35:14]-
Gary Leland:
Which computer do you have?
Erin Gregor:
Mac. I do Macs because I don't even ... I shouldn't even say this. I don't even have antivirus on my Mac, which I know I should. I know we've talked about that before.
Gary Leland:
Yeah, I don't either. I don't either.
Erin Gregor:
Oh, I thought you did. I thought you did now that-
Gary Leland:
Oh, yeah, I do. I forgot. I added that. It does it automatically. I have Malwarebytes on here. It was recommended to me by several people who speak across the country on security. So I have Malwarebytes, but I also use the Exodus wallet. I like that on the Mac. I think I like it, because I got used to using it when I was a newbie, and it's so user friendly that, I mean it's like, oh my gosh, it's so easy to use and I'm just used to using it now.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. But then it's on your desktop, right?
Gary Leland:
They have a desktop and phone version. And you can-
Erin Gregor:
Okay.
Gary Leland:
But it's got a really nice user interface, and when you open it up, if there's any money, if you had any money transferred, it makes this sound like change jingling, you go, "Oh, I got some money." [crosstalk 00:36:17].
Erin Gregor:
Oh, that's fun.
Gary Leland:
You go, "I'd like to see where your money came from," because you might have it on donation pages, something like that. You don't even know you're getting it. And the guys, they're pretty nice guys there. One of the guys spoke last year at Bit Block Boom. So you might want to look at Exodus wallet. I mean, I recommend it. I liked it.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. I think I'm going to avoid anything on my desktop, and like I said, get this off my phone, but I'm going to get a secondary one just to ... I don't know why it's ... I like having, I don't know, it's like a hoarder in me or something. I have it with socks too. I've got several different brokerages. I don't know. It makes things complicated, but it makes me feel I have more money.
Gary Leland:
Hey, whatever works for you.
Erin Gregor:
I don't know.
Gary Leland:
It's your money. If you don't do good or you do good, you want it to because you're the one that ... If you don't do good, you want it to because you were the idiot, not because you listened to someone else who was an idiot. That's what I always say. If I screw up in life, I want it to be because I was the idiot, not because I listened to an idiot.
Erin Gregor:
Well, and just like I said, I like things that I can forget about too, where I'm like, "Oh, isn't this fun? I forgot I had whatever over there." But anyway, even though I don't forget about it, but I hope I will. It's like the alarm clock. I put my clock at 10 minutes ahead every time hoping I'll wake up and be like, "Oh, it's 10:10. I got to get out of bed." And then I'm like, "Erin, it's really 10 o'clock. You're not fooling yourself." I try to fool myself.
Gary Leland:
[crosstalk 00:37:48] and I go, "That's stupid as hell. You know what time it is." But I don't use a alarm clock. I just wake up nowadays. I think it's something about getting old. You just start waking up early for no damn reason. You have nothing [crosstalk 00:38:03] you're awake and you can't even get back to sleep.
Gary Leland:
Hey, I got something. Are you familiar with Biz Talk Radio?
Erin Gregor:
No.
Gary Leland:
Okay. It kind of has something to do with crypto. So they're a national radio network, a business top, and they go out on the wire or whatever, and they want me to come be their chief executive vice president on the radio station and a handle all their podcasting because they know nothing about podcasting and they know they're missing the boat.
Erin Gregor:
That's cool.
Gary Leland:
Yeah. The guy said, "I just listened to my first podcast last week." And I said, "Really?" And he goes, "Yeah." I said, "Huh?" He was looking for someone who loves podcasting, who knows a lot about it, and who knows business, to come and board here, and they called me up. I told them I would do that if not only I agree to all their terms, but I said, "You also have to carry my show on your network."
Erin Gregor:
That's a good idea.
Gary Leland:
Then they have a guy who promotes it to independent channels. He goes around and promotes it, a salesman, most of the shows to the independent channels, I said, "And he's got to promote my show," because anyone he can get a show to network, but no one's promoting it to the radio stations ... Anyway. So that has nothing to do with we're talking about, but-
Erin Gregor:
Is he going to promote the podcast to the radio stations, though, too?
Gary Leland:
Hm?
Erin Gregor:
He's not going to promote the podcast to the radio stations, will he?
Gary Leland:
No, he promotes the radio shows.
Erin Gregor:
Okay.
Gary Leland:
Yeah. So I would create a new show for them about crypto, for the radio [crosstalk 00:39:42].
Erin Gregor:
Oh, okay.
Gary Leland:
Yeah. I think they have an older audience, probably. It's a business radio station. So I was going to create Bitcoin for Boomers Radio Show.
Erin Gregor:
That's a good idea. And where are they based out of?
Gary Leland:
Actually they're based out of Dallas, Fort Worth. You know Fox Sports TV? You ever heard of that? Big [crosstalk 00:40:04]-
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. Yeah.
Gary Leland:
... sports and the Southwest conference and all that. The guy who invented that, who sold that, was a guy named Ed something. I've met him a couple of times now. He started that and sold it for a ton of dough, and now he's doing Biz Talk Radio. And then they have a thing in Vegas, they have a thing in Kentucky, they had things all over the place.
Erin Gregor:
Okay. So does this mean you're getting a J-O-B?
Gary Leland:
Well, not really. I'll be here. I guess technically I am, but I don't think I would listen to a boss.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. I can't see you in an employee role.
Gary Leland:
They would just give me access to all the dashboards and everything and I could just do it from here. So I'll just do it in my office here.
Erin Gregor:
All right. That's not so bad.
Gary Leland:
But technically, I'm an employee, I guess. That would be weird.
Erin Gregor:
That is very weird. I can't picture you as a [crosstalk 00:40:53] ... Yeah. You got your job you got to go to.
Gary Leland:
I haven't been an employee in a long time, in like 40 years.
Erin Gregor:
Hopefully you don't piss off the boss. Be careful.
Gary Leland:
Yeah, I don't want to get fired. I'm really scared.
Erin Gregor:
All right. Well, make the announcement. Gary Leland is where we find you on Twitter, Bit Block Boom is a conference coming up? When is that?
Gary Leland:
It's pretty good.
Erin Gregor:
I'm finally able to say it without stumbling through it.
Gary Leland:
Yeah. We just had two new speakers today and yesterday. We got Ben Woosley who works on Bitcoin core. He actually writes on the Bitcoin protocol. He's working on a new protocol, they're working on ... I can't remember the name of it. I didn't know it is in existence till we talked about it. And then we have someone from Iterative Capital speaking. Both of them are speaking in the tech track. So two new speakers. If people are into Bitcoin, they'll know what those are. But if you're a beginner, you probably don't want to come spend the money.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. But as you start transferring money over to your wallets, and you actually know what you're doing, then maybe ...
Gary Leland:
Then you might want to ... I'm not trying to con people into coming to a conference that they don't get anything out of. We'll sell out anyway just with people ... And I think we have another guy out of Canada, works for Bull Bitcoin in Canada, and I think he's going to agree to speak. So, they come from all over the world. It's amazing.
Erin Gregor:
No, it was awesome. I helped last year with the registration, and just, I mean, people were literally from all over the world, so it was cool.
Gary Leland:
Yeah. A lot of people say this is going to probably end up being one of the ... Like the guy last night from Canada, there's a big conference called Bitcoin 2020 which is good for beginners in California. It'll have 3,000, 4,000 people this year and he said, "I'm not going. It's too many people." He goes, "I'm interested in yours because yours is limited."
Erin Gregor:
It's the right people too.
Gary Leland:
"I don't want to be around all those newbies."
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. Yeah. They got to answer the stupid questions about wallets and nodes. What's a node? What's a Satoshi? They're like, "I'm done with these conversations."
Gary Leland:
"What's a Stablecoin?"
Erin Gregor:
"What's a Stablecoin?" We just talked about Libra last week, but yeah, I guess there's just so much ... I don't know. Every time [crosstalk 00:43:13]-
Gary Leland:
... sent in every week, and in a certain amount of time, people will have a basic concept of everything that there is. They may not be an expert, but they have enough to stand at the water cooler, and if someone says something, they're in the conversation. I remember after I was in this like six months, I was listening to a podcast that was a lot of more technical, and I was thinking to myself, "Gosh, how many words did they use that I would have had no idea what they were talking about six months ago?" I mean, six months earlier, I would've just gone, "What in the hell did they say in that last [crosstalk 00:43:46]?" But I was able to follow the conversation, because there are a lot of words ... Most people don't even know what fiat is. They've never heard that word before. And that's a basic word.
Erin Gregor:
Well, and I feel it's one of those things, it's like you open a door, you're like, "Okay, I kind of grasp this, I'm going to open this door, I get it." And then there's 50 more doors you've got to figure out how to open. You think, "Well, how much more can I learn? You just buy a Bitcoin. What the hell? And I know Bitcoin is ... what is this?" And then all of a sudden you're like, "Holy crap. I thought I knew what I was talking about. Now I realize I know nothing." You just keep going deeper and deeper into the weeds.
Gary Leland:
Deeper into the rabbit hole, I'd say.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. Into the rabbit hole of just like-
Gary Leland:
Like Alice.
Erin Gregor:
Exactly. And there's fricking Mad Hatters everywhere. You don't know what the hell is happening.
Gary Leland:
There's a cat in there ...
Erin Gregor:
You're like, "Dude." [crosstalk 00:44:46]. Alice in Wonderland, I'm going to be honest with you, I didn't like it. It was not my favorite Disney movie.
Gary Leland:
That guy must've been on drugs.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. 100%. Especially back in that time.
Gary Leland:
Yeah. Yeah.
Erin Gregor:
All right, so head over to @GaryLeland, head over to Bit Block Boom if you feel like you want to push yourself, or you feel like you're at that level where you want learn some more and just network, that's really why you put this together, is really the networking piece.
Gary Leland:
Yeah. When I was first getting into this, I listened to every podcast I could listen to, even if I didn't know what they were saying. And my thought was, "The more I listen, I can learn a little bit every time." And before you knew it, I would know a lot. So, that's what I did. That's why like podcasts.
Erin Gregor:
I do too.
Gary Leland:
Because I think you absorb information, even though you're just driving down the street and you're listening, and you don't know what they're saying, you're absorbing something without even knowing. It's like one of those records that you listen to when you sleep, you're supposed to be making smarter [crosstalk 00:45:48]-
Erin Gregor:
Yep, subliminal messages. Yep.
Gary Leland:
Same thing. You're picking up something without even knowing it.
Erin Gregor:
Well, and that's even with this, it's like, "Okay, I'm listening to the more high end or deeper ones," we'll call them. And it was like, "Oh, Stablecoin this, Stablecoin ..." I'm like, "Ding, I get it." But I'm a why person. Help me understand why they would do this and how. I need to connect the dots, and I need to know ...
Gary Leland:
What don't you listen to?
Erin Gregor:
What am I listening to? Unchained is one of them I'm listening to.
Gary Leland:
There's [Orscheln 00:46:19].
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. What else am I listening to?
Gary Leland:
I thought you'd listen to that.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. I got to support the women. But she's a smarty pants. She knows what she's talking about.
Gary Leland:
She is a smarty pants.
Erin Gregor:
I have yours I listen to. What else? Crypto Cousins. And there is one I liked ... Off the Chain, I think was his. Do you listen to his? [crosstalk 00:46:45]-
Gary Leland:
Oh, Anthony Pompliano?
Erin Gregor:
Yeah, those are the ones I've been listening to. Just trying to consume them all.
Gary Leland:
[crosstalk 00:46:54] podcast is the Stephan Livera Show. He's out of Australia. He's a smart guy. He'll be speaking at the conference, coming in from Australia to speak. But I like Stephan, so if you get a chance to listen to some of that ... but it's a little technical, too. But like I said, after you listen to enough you start knowing what's going on more.
Erin Gregor:
Yeah. And I want to start getting to a point, like I told you, getting people on this one, too, to talk to and ask questions to. I got to get that accountant on, figure out what I can do on the ... not that I want to sell anything, but just in case.
Gary Leland:
Sounds good to me.
Erin Gregor:
All right. All right, well, we'll wrap up this week. Gary, thank you so much as always, and Four Minute Crypto, Gary Leland, @GaryLeland, and Bit Block Boom if you want to go check out more. So, all right, Gary. We'll talk to you soon.
Gary Leland:
Thank you, Erin. Adios.
Erin Gregor:
All right. Bye-bye.
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